1. Handling of Large Datasets and Manipulation Capabilities

• Working with large datasets
• VLOOKUP vs Merge
• Trace or debug
• Subset & Recode
• More statistical capabilities

2. Automation

• VBA vs R Script
• Reproducible Code
• Write your own functions and be more productive
• Reporting with Markdown / Flexdashboard
  

3. Community

• Whatever you’re trying to do, someone else has already done it
• R-Ladies
• Stackoverflow
• R-bloggers
  

Tips

1. Don’t be scared - you’ll be seeing a lot of these

“Error in eval”

“could not find function”

“no applicable method”

“object of type ‘closure’ is not subsettable”

2. Invest the time to understand useful packages (my favorites are data.table & ggplot)

3. Automation gives you more time on to spend on things you enjoy

4. Don’t reinvent the wheel - google

5. Adopt a good coding practice

• E.g. Google Coding Style guide